But the views of Paddy Power, William Hill, Stan James and that smarmy bloke from Coral matter not one jot when the action starts for real. Ditto the thoughts of punditry luminaries such as Peter Beagrie. What matters is what occurs on the green stuff, and we should all be thankful that finally we'll be spared the mind-numbing, cliché-ridden 'the season ahead' interviews with managers and players.

Twitter is awash with folk describing City's first four fixtures [Wolves (a), Watford (h), Blackburn (h), Ipswich (a)] as 'tricky', but are they really trickier than any other run of four games over the course of the season? Not convinced. Every game is going to be a battle. The first four are no different.